Financial Reporting in the Bigger Picture: Al Gore in Amsterdam, October 2006

In a speech to a Global Reporting Initiative conference in Amsterdam in October 2006, former Vice President Al Gore compared the financial sector to the sliver of light around 1015 waves/second on the electromagnetic spectrum. He said when he was briefed daily as vice president by the U.S. intelligence agencies, the infrared side of the spectrum (including radio and microwaves) and the ultraviolet side (xrays and gamma rays) were part of his briefing and yielded much information.

Financial reporting, he said, is like that sliver of light. We lose a lot of information by only looking here for data. It is the most visible part of government and corporate reporting, but it is not the only source of data and we can find out a lot by looking at other numbers. So we need better global reporting on other parts of the corporate activity spectrum.